"Women and children" So, is it ok if it had been mostly men? I am the parent of a man and I find that phrase offensive.

"...government sources to the Pakistani daily The News say: the success rate of the Barack Obama administration's "hell from above" Predator drone war over the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) is a mere 6%. Of "60 Predator strikes between January 14, 2006, and April 8, 2009, only 10 hit their targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders" but most of all "killing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians". All of them Pashtuns."

The Obama administration's war on Pashtunistan will spill an ocean of innocent blood
and still lose the 'war' for Eurasia.

"The report, The Weapons That Kill Civilians, Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq, was compiled from a sample of 60,481 deaths in 14,196 events over a five-year period since the 2003 invasion. Civilian casualties from concentrated bouts of violence, such as the two sieges of Fallujah, were excluded."

Gee golly, wonder why they didn't include the massacres of Fallujah's people which included the phosphorus weapons . . .

'Concentrated bouts of violence' is a nice way, too, to refer to planned mass murder.

But, like the CIA torturers Obama has decided not to "seek retribution" against, and like the accused at Nuremberg, these were "only following orders".

The Evil Empire strikes again.

Edit: In the following, my original post, I refer to IED's and it's not that, but 'suicide bombings' that I should've said. However, the rest of the original post stands, wouldn't be changed at all.

The article's author says, "Twelve per cent of those killed by suicide bombings, mainly the tool of militant Sunni groups, ...", and that's really [speculation]. There surely are other resistance fighters in Iraq who used IED's, and it's not unlikely that some covert U.S. and U.K. operators also did this. Remember the news reports on the two British soldiers disguised as Arabs or Iraqis driving into Basra with a car loaded with explosives and possessing guns, while one of the two shot an Iraqi police officer there when the Iraqi police caught these two evil acting British soldiers or if not soldiers, then certainly British covert operators from another British government group of killers. "Operation Salvador" definitely happened in El Salvador, and there were strong articles about this happening again in Iraq, particularly after (title?) John Negroponte, who's notoriously associated the original Op. Salvador in criminal terms, arrived in Iraq. BRusselsTribunal.org had a whole page and index dedicated to "Op. Salvador in Iraq" and Max Fuller was one of the strong contributors. Some of his articles are still available at that website, and a Web search for "Operation Salvador in Iraq" along with the website's domain name for search terms should turn up links.

And this also applies with more of what Kim Sengupta says in this Independent, UK, article.

It's a considerably worthless and potentially erroroneous (for some things said) article, really. The Independent, UK, should try to do only good, qualitative reporting and analysis, but the news organisation doesn't seem to particularly care about committing low quality and errors.

I don't see the point of focusing on more or many more women and children of Iraq having been killed because of this war than Iraqi men who were killed. The war's totally criminal, was never at all justifiable, was never for the purpose of bringing any kind of good results for Iraqis, and so on. If it was many more Iraqi men killed than Iraqi children and women, then would the war be any less criminal and morally hellbent, totally condemnable? Definitely not! Men and women, BTW, are both human beings and both deserve for their human rights and dignity to be [respected]!

The Independent, UK, and its author have chosen to [waste] readers' time! They should, instead, focus on trying to do [real] journalism.

as long as the MSM keep reporting from within the green zone, hopefully most people will not know or care about this most unfortunate situation.

This is news? can it really be possible that anyone- even readers of msm still did not know who the u.s. is killing? we do not need research. what we desperately need now is to stop. stop killing Afghans Iraqis and Palestinians.

It's getting harder to not hate these people; our people who care nothing for human life, or the rights of another people, who are different than ourselves. If this was happening next door to me, to a neighbor, I'd do my best to stop it immediately. I'd call the police, and intervene if possible to save lives. Our government KNOWINGLY kills innocent men, women, and children and excuses it by saying they don't mean to. BULLSHIT!!!!!! They know it is going to happen if they attack, and they attack anyway. That is an intentional act. It is pre-meditated murder. How long will it continue? Unfortunately, nearly half the population believe that it is justified. It would take a civil war to stop it.

Why?

Because they're easier to kill.

Pre-emptively killing them before they become terrorists.

Testing weapons for training purposes.

To keep producing terrorists

to keep the Pentagon budget rising.

To give public money to military contractors

to please politician's "contributors".

To give the MSM something juicy.

and so on

Of course they hit mostly women and children.

The gringo goons, just like the Israeli goons, TARGET women and children.

Bring the Jihad to America again, we need another 911, we deserve it!

And we call THEM terroritst!!!

'Don't get fooled again' - Pete Townsend

Our wholesale disregard for those we kill and maim is disgusting. It is also sowing the seeds from which we will reap bitter fruit indeed. Looking at that photo reminded me of a poem I wrote after the mercenaries were killed, precipitating the destruction of Fallujah.
------------------------------
Perhaps it is Time to Break the Wheel

Blood, burned bodies hanging.
Outrage! Revenge! Barbarians! Savages!
Kill them until they surrender!
Give them no quarter!

Music to Bush and Company’s ears,
This cry for revenge and destruction.
If this is the people’s mood,
His forces may kill at will.

What of the Iraqi, holding a burned body,
That represents his hopes and dreams?
He sits on the ground before a burned out home,
Cradling wife or child and watching the soldiers.

What may be passing through his mind?
Outrage! Revenge! Barbarians! Savages!
Kill them until they surrender!
Give them no quarter!

Thus is this horror perpetuated
In war after war, year after year,
From Richard Cœur De Lyon
To the current tragic bloodbath.

Steve Osborn
10 April 2004
------------------------------------
And so it continues, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan. Is the IDF learning how to destroy civilian populations from us, or we from them?

Somehow, this has got to stop! Disagreements are settled by talking and negotiating, not by killing everyone who disagrees with you.

America's hard-bitten Imperial Stormtroopers prefer 'soft' targets. . . Such sweethearts!

I don't think dropping all these bombs was to "incentivize Iraqis" to be okay with being occupied.

Throughout history there has been a relentless pursuit of improving and creating new weapons of war, ... to conquer, to get to be #1 or an Empire or whatever.

When airplanes were used in WWI, the airplanes were quite primitive. By the time we got to WWII, a variety of planes were faster, had higher manueverability, could be used for carrying troops, heavy cargo, and travel further than ever before, and all the rest. After we dropped Atom Bombs, the race was on to have more sophisticated NUCLEAR weapons to use from the air and from submarines. ...

And the research and development on every kind of weaponry for the air, on and underneath the sea, on the ground, etcetera, continued and continues and continues. A new weapon MUST BE TRIED OUT; new weapons must be readied for both the old and the new enemies to come. Faster, more accurate, more lethally effective is the formula.

Never changes.

How much easier to send out our unmanned drone planes now, with some unknown body in Virginia, evidently, sighting the potential enemies on a little screen and firing away, except it's mostly civilians killed. System needs to be improved for accuracy and it will be.

But, who cares? all this hi-tech stuff in the air, on and within the sea, on land close or faraway saves U.S. lives on the ground. Hand-to-hand, gun-to-gun fighting is so old-fashioned.

So we obliterate cities and villages and leave people struggling desperately to just live. Governments are brought down, everything is in disarray and confusion or obliterated.

Iraq was all about its giving up rights to their oil, anyway, and that's just about happened with all the latest negotiating and giving in to sign contracts with major international oil corporations. How well that vaunted new Democratic Process in Iraq worked for the major oil corporations, especially when the Bush government could hand-pick or manipulate "the winners."

Robots are in the works now to do our flying and fighting, and, yes, the total Pentagon budget has been cut in terms of obsolete weapons, but actually the total budget amount has just gone up by billions. And you can be sure, there will be lots of R & D on improving weapons and weapons systems and creating new ones, at which point there will be a convenient war or need to attack with our preventive-because-they-don't-like-us strategy on the Bushian books to try out these new gizzies and find out how effective these new weapon systems are.

We are in a kind of mentality here in the U.S. that with maybe ten per cent of exceptions, is across-the-boards callous, stupid, apathetic, unaware, unevolved, and depraved.

IF when we bombed Afghanistan and then Iraq, we had truly helped with food and medical supplies and rebuilt, repaired, reconstructed all that that had been damaged and added some modern conveniences and that kind of thing to these countries' infra-structure, as was promised we were going to do, this would have been over a long time ago. But those misguided, war-cheering stoneheads in our government and those they contract with have achieved a kind of rampant corruption and ineptitude and insensitivy that dove-tails with and duplicates nicely our whole sick system of corporate capitalism and out-of-control economic/financial systems. PROFIT. PROFIT. PROFIT.

It's sort of like, if you go to a surgeon to consult on a physical problem, he/she recommends an operation and cuts; if you go to a a different kind of doctor or practioner, you may be given a treatment of medicines, vitamins, physical therapies or personal counseling/body-work therapies.

Go to the military to solve a problem, you will get war and weaponry, and if you have hawks in the Congress and in the Presidency or you have stupid people, inexperienced people and/or people who love to make money more than anything else and love the concept of POWER, etcetera, they will take the advice of the military and frequently then we will be primed for a continuance of war or new reasons to create more war will be developed.

Women and children don't count anymore, neither do the "pawn soldiers" [Kissinger's description] and fighters, mostly male, if they ever did count. It's all so impersonal, dishonest, and depraved. It's historically far more important to develop and try out all these new weapons than worry about individuals or their gender or age or anything like that.

The Age of Chivalry is long gone. It seems to me that we are coming to The Time of The End because of our alienation from life and life-affirming systems, which means either extinction or an eventual positive transformation born out of great pain and suffering. If we continue doing the same thing over and over again, as Albert Einstein said, "expecting different results," we are insane. Our current insanity is a symbol of the breakdown of all systems, and that breakdown is exactly what may be required to birth something new, like a fledgling Phoenix rising from the ashes to begin a new and different Chapter in the history of the earth and humankind.

/cm

State terror made in U.S.A.

When our despicable and moronic Congress allowed Bush to get us stuck in these messes, the goal set forth for the military effort was to 'prevent future terrorism'.
And so the US and NATO militaries kill people who might become future terrorists.

We will be stuck in this insanity until the lizard-brained idiots in Congress take responsibility for getting us into these messes.
Don't hold your breath.

"Growing anger over civilian casualties caused by air raids in another front of the "war on terror", Afghanistan, has led to the US, UK and their Nato partners reviewing their policy of using warplanes."

These powers can "review" away, but I'll about guarantee that their reviews will not result in the abandonment of air raids. This report cannot reveal anything not already known about civilian casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan resulting from the "air raids" there. NATO, the U.S. and the U.K. do not care about civilian casualties, only those of their own forces. What could be more protective of U.S. lives (and destructive of Pakistani civilian lives) than the continued deployment of Predator drones? Iraq is a "success" because our troops can now withdraw from Iraqi cities (June 30) and let the Iraqis kill each other, no problem. Military operations in Pakistan are already a great "success" because they wreak havoc on the "enemy" (Taliban and civilian) with virtually no "coalition" casualties. This is the way we "do" war as the world's sole surviving super-power, and no "reviews" are going to change that reality.

sneaker, nothing has ever worked to incentivize civilian acquiescence to occupation. Name one country where civilians have welcomed their occupiers.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson

It took them SIX years to figure this out?? Outside groups knew it all along. This can only be intentional blindness, because in reality, they don't really care about "collateral" - women and children - deaths and mutilation. If they did, they would have done something else. And that includes you, President Obama. Why is it that when someone becomes President, he has no problem killing women and children?

Sadly, the American people go right along with it. No empathy here. The human race has a long way to go.

When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson

Mission accomplished.

USAF terror raids aim to incentivize civilian population's acquiescence to occupation.

You cooperate or you die.

You obey orders or we slaughter your kids.